Gave

How to spell gave

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gave

What does gave mean?

1. verbPast tense of 'give': handed over, presented, or granted something to someone.

Gave in a sentence

• The manager gave each employee a small bonus before the holidays.

• She gave her old laptop to her younger brother.

Where does gave come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'give', and it descends directly from Old English, the earliest form of English brought to Britain by Germanic settlers. The Old English verb was giefan, meaning 'to hand over' or 'to grant', and its past tense was geaf, from which our modern 'gave' is the unbroken descendant. The word belongs to a large family of related Germanic verbs, including the Old Norse gefa and the Dutch geven, all carrying the same core idea of presenting something to another person. Because 'give' is a strong verb, it changes its vowel for the past tense rather than simply adding '-ed', which is exactly why we write 'gave' and not 'gived'. That vowel-swapping pattern, inherited from the oldest layer of the language, is shared by neighbours such as 'sing' and 'sang' or 'drink' and 'drank'.

How the word is built

• gave (irregular past tense of the verb 'give'; from Old English geaf)